Of Ships and Shrinks
by Eliza Lighton
Summary: Jamie Kirk is a young woman in charge of a very large ship. She's also a patient in a private mental facility in rural Iowa. In both worlds she seems to be connecting in a much less professional, much more personal way with Dr. Leonard McCoy. At times where she can't tell fantasy from reality, one thing is certain: she trusts Dr. McCoy. AU, alwaysagirl!Kirk/McCoy


**A/N:** **This is an AU that I came across in my drafts this evening. I've got enough for two chapters at the moment, and I'm posting this to gauge interest. Please please please let me know if you like this and if I should continue. Thanks and much love! P.S. I own nothing, I just have an over active imagination.**

Captain Jamie Kirk of the USS Enterprise sat in the familiar chair in the center of the bridge. As she looked around her, she saw the familiar faces of her crew. Sulu and Chekov at the helm. Spock at the science station and Uhura at communications. Making a rare appearance on the bridge sat Scotty at a station to her left. And at her shoulder stood Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, her CMO. Her best friend. She closed her eyes and relaxed into the leather wrapped Captain's chair. All was right with the world.

"Jamie."

She shook her head, wanting to revel in the rightness of this moment. No one was attacking, the ship was working at 100%. Moments like these were rare.

"Jamie."

"What?" she asked with irritation.

"I need you to come back now."

"Come back where? You're kinda ruining my mood, Bones."

"Jamie, open your eyes."

"Fine." She opened her eyes, but what she saw was not the bridge. Surrounding her were not computers and crewmen, but books and a solitary man standing by the chair opposite her. The walls were not stark white of an unknown material. They were covered in wood panels and bookcases filled with thick reference books and medical journals. And Dr. McCoy was not a surgeon. He was a psychiatrist. Her psychiatrist.

He unbuttoned his suit coat and sat down in the chair. Pulling out a yellow legal pad, he looked at her with that knowing look that she hated so. "You were there, weren't you? On the Enterprise?"

She pulled at a loose string on the sleeve of her sweater. "Yeah," she said, meekly.

"Tell me about it."

She threw her hands up in frustration. "What else is there to tell? Scotty, Uhura, Spock, Sulu, Chekov… they were all there! For once we weren't being attacked, but the ship was the same. The smells, the sounds, the bright lights? All the same."

He jotted a note down on the pad. "Was I there?"

"Yeah, you were there."

"What were you feeling while you were there?"

Jamie laughed sardonically and stood up from her chair. "Is that all they teach you guys how to do at psych school? 'How does that make you feel?'" she said, mocking the doctor's slight Southern drawl. She walked to the large bay window that overlooked the campus grounds.

The doctor got up and went to her side. "I know this has been difficult, Jamie. But we're making some real progress here. You can't expect miracles after only having been here two months."

"You know, Dr. McCoy? I actually like you better on the Enterprise. You're not as condescending."

McCoy raised an eyebrow. "I was actually going to suggest we go for a walk for the rest of our session, but if you're going to be nasty, I can think of better ways to spend our time."

Jamie smiled. "A walk it is then."

He helped her into her coat and put on his own. She wrapped a gold scarf around her neck, pulling her long hair out from beneath it, and he pulled on a blue knitted stocking cap. Jamie failed to hide a smile at that.

McCoy's eyes grew big. "What? My mother made it for me."

"A psychiatrist at the Archer Memorial Hospital, the best (and most expensive) private nuthouse in Iowa wears hats from his mother?"

The doctor looked offended. "I'm going to ignore that for your own good. Besides, I'm an only child. Who else is going to wear it?" He opened the door and ushered her out. They passed Dr. M'Benga, another psychologist, and Nurses Uhura and Chapel in the hallway from McCoy's office. They went down the staircase and exited through the front door.

In the short time Jamie had been at the hospital, she had come to know a great deal about it. It was a series of buildings dating back to the 1800s. The main building, where the patients were housed and the offices were was a mansion that had once belonged to an explorer named Admiral Archer. He had built the mansion to house his wife while he went on long overseas adventures, and slowly the time alone had taken it's toll on her. She had went mad, and died of loneliness when she was only 28. When the Admiral died, he left the grounds and the house to a local hospital with the provision that it become a mental institution. The hospital was now overseen by a friend of Jamie's family, Christopher Pike.

Jamie's mother had been at a loss as to what to do with her after the loss of George Kirk, Jamie's father. He was a victim of a brutal carjacking that left Jamie in the hospital with severe injuries, including a broken leg, arm, collarbone, and ribs. After the assault, Jamie was never the same. Things truly came to a head when, two years afterwards, Winona Kirk remarried. Jamie suffered a break with reality. She imagined herself on the bridge of what she called a starship, fighting single handedly against a warrior race she called Klingons. Winona called George's old college buddy, Christopher Pike, who suggested Jamie stay a while at Archer Memorial.

Within a week, Jamie added three to the crew of her fictional ship. Her doctor, of course. The nurse that did the daily announcements every morning at breakfast, Nurse Uhura, became the ship's communications officer. And Spock. Spock was the hospital's librarian who dealt in facts only, with little room for emotion or rule breaking. Jamie loved to try and push his buttons, and although he claimed to have none, after Jamie said something provocative or "illogical", he would raise an eyebrow in amusement or shock. No one could tell which.

Jamie inhaled deeply, breathing in the sharp cold air. Snow had fallen the previous night, and several patients were building snowmen around the grounds. "Where are we going, Doc?"

"Ladies first."

She bent down and scooped up some snow in her hand. She began walking towards the other buildings that comprised the complex. McCoy eyed the snow in her hand but said nothing. He walked behind her.

"How's your mother?"

Jamie's shoulder's became rigid and her gait stiffened for a moment. "She's fine."

"Ok, I can see that's a touchy subject for you."

She wheeled around to face him. "You think? Yes. It's a touchy subject for me. My loving mother locked me away from the world rather than sitting down with me to see what was wrong." The snow dropped from her hand. "So you can stop with the shrink shit, ok? When we get back to your office, you can jot down a note: it all started with the mother."

McCoy shoved his hands inside his coat pocket and kicked at the snow. "That's not exactly true, is it?"

Jamie sighed. "No." She started down the path again. "No."

"Why do you think those particular people are on your ship?"

She shrugged.

"What similarities do they have to their respective reality counterparts?"

"I don't know. Uhura's the communications officer and she makes the announcements every morning?"

McCoy nodded. "Good. Good, who else?"

"Uhmm, Sulu's an amateur botanist and the navigator on the ship. He's always in the arboretum and he gave me the tour my first day here?"

"Anyone else?"

Jamie blushed, but hoped it would appear as though her cheeks were red from the cold. "You. Doctor and best friend on the ship."

"And here?"

"Doctor and, well, the closest thing to a confidant I have here. So I guess that makes you like a friend."

McCoy nodded, but said nothing. They walked in silence for a while until they reached the last building on their path. Turning back towards the main building, Jamie turned to her doctor. "What good does all that do, though? I still have the breaks."

McCoy looked thoughtful. "I'm hoping that if we can identify all the things on your ship, it might help you to see those characteristics in the…" He grimaced. "In the, well, the real world for lack of a better term. Maybe then, your ship will go away."

Jamie stopped walking. "But what if I don't want it to?"

McCoy stopped and put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

They went their separate ways when they reached Archer House. McCoy headed up the main staircase and walked the long hallway to his office in the south wing. Outside his door stood his head nurse, Chapel, ready to bring him up to date on everything in the hospital. Sometimes he wished that he hadn't taken the head psych position after Puri retired. He'd only done it as a favor to Pike, and like most favors, McCoy felt that it had come to bite him in the ass.

"Alright, Chapel. What's the news today?" he asked as he unlocked his door. Once the door was open, he gestured for the nurse to enter and shut the door behind him. She took her usual seat across from his desk and waited for him to remove his hat and coat. When she felt he was ready, she began.

"Medicines were distributed at nine this morning. We only had trouble with Mr. Scott, as he requested his to come with Scotch. At a quarter past ten, group was led by Dr. M'Benga. No issues there, here's his report." She handed him a file across the desk. "Lunch was served from 11:30 to 1:30. Appropriate prescriptions were distributed. At two-thirty, Ms. Gaila tried to sexually assault Mr. Sulu in the arboretum."

McCoy looked up from the folder. "Reprimand?"

"Solitary for 12 hours and an escort for the next three days."

McCoy went back to the report and nodded for her to continue.

"There's been nothing else noteworthy today as of yet." Chapel looked from her notes to McCoy.

He put the file down. He sighed and got up from his chair. "Want a drink?" When she nodded, he walked to a small table with a decanter and poured two glasses of scotch. Keeping one for himself, he passed the other to the nurse and looked out the window.

"How's the Kirk case?"

He sighed again and took a drink. "I think I'm going to need to pass her case to Geoff."

Chapel raised an eyebrow. "Why's that, Doctor?"

"I'm getting too close." When she didn't respond he downed his glass and sat back down at his desk. "I initiated physical contact today."

Chapel, again, said nothing.

"Christine, have you ever gotten too close?"

"You know I have."

"How'd you deal with it?"

"May I speak frankly?" At his nod, she continued. "I sucked it up and moved on, sir."

He snorted. "Well that's one way to do it I guess."

"What we do here is hard. We worm our ways into people's lives. They tell us their deepest darkest secrets. We form deep bonds with them. It's ok to feel like you're getting close. Hell, to even be attracted to them. But don't act on that attraction. Trust me, it's for the better."

McCoy looked up from his desk and smiled at the woman sitting across from him. "Damn, Chapel. When'd you get to be so deep?"

She stood up. "Goodnight Doctor."

"Goodnight, Nurse."

He pushed paper for another hour before switching off his desk lamp and heading home. He lived in one of the small outlying buildings on the grounds. All of the department heads did to keep a closer eye on their patients. Something made him turn halfway down the path to look at Archer House. Up in a third floor window on the patients' side he thought he glimpsed Jamie in the window. He blinked and she was gone. 'Definitely getting too close, old man,' he thought as he shook his head and made his way home.


End file.
